Can Cancer Struggle Make Good Radio?

Like a lot of media reporters, I got to know Leroy Sievers when he took over as executive producer of ABC's Nightline. Unusually forthright about issues involving the show, he was a creative storyteller, great interview subject and even presaged all the behind-the-scenes blogs now deployed by network TV news departments with a widely-read email update that truly pulled back the curtain on decisions at Nightline.

Squeezed out of working on the show amid the tumultuous revamp that also, eventually, encouraged longtime host Ted Koppel to hit the road, Sievers spent a year teaching, volunteering with the Red Cross and helping Non-Governmental Organizations in Africa before planning to come back to the news biz.

But his cancer had other ideas. He thought he had beaten colon cancer five years ago, but problems with slurred speech last December ("I thought no one noticed...but a friend thought I was drunk when we went to the movies together," Sievers says now) led to a chilling diagnosis: six months to live.

All of this wouldn't have risen above the level of news business gossip if Sievers hadn't also decided to share his struggle with National Public Radio's audience, crafting a pair of evocative, emotional commentaries on his struggle with cancer that Sievers says brought more public response than anything he did on Nightline.

"One of the things you face is quality of life vs. quantity of life," said Sievers, who now has a 13-month prognosis and inspiration from a friend who has survived 10 years with a similar ailment. "Do you stay on chemotherapy and feel (bad) all the time? Do I get those new eyeglasses I need? I haven't bought clothes, because I'm not sure I really need them."

Given all the tumult in the media industry these days, this is a story that seems too small for consideration, I'm sure. But Sievers' commentaries have been moving and compelling, and I think if you spend a little tiem checking them out, you may find the education about life with a terminal illness worthwhile.

"I think it would be hard to come closer to the classic definition of publishing the departure time of a troop ship in war time and inviting the enemy to shoot a torpedo at it than this," said Frum today on Washington Post media writer Howard Kurtz's CNN show Reliable Sources. "Here's a program where there's no allegation of abuse....Yes, look, there are a lot of people in the government who are disgruntled about the Bush administration's approach, and they have taken on a program of sabotage and leaking, but it wouldn't work without the complicity of the papers. This is as big a media scandal as it's possible to be."

New York Times columnist Frank Rich responded by noting that the Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times also published accounts of the same program, and that the administration didn't begin to brief Congress about it, until they realized the newspapers were going to publish the story.

It's a classic conundrum for journalists, and one that I think the general public is often too dismissive of. Perhaps people assume their financial records won't be examined, but this Washington Post article examines the privacy implications of such a program.

Freedom of speech and privacy vs. security? This seems to be the question continually at hand as a secretive administration pushes more invasive surveillance programs and an aggressive press works harder to ferret them out -- facing subpoeanas for confidential sources and diminishing protection in the courts.

I know that as a journalist I'm biased toward good stories and skeptical of government. But such revelations seem to me the only way to ensure such programs are implemented the way they are supposed to be. And, in the end, that's part of our job -- isn't it?

About the blog

The Feed is your source for television news, reviews and commentary. A group of Tampa Bay Times writers will blog about everything from their current TV obsessions to the changing TV/media landscape (binge-watching galore!). Let's all geek out over our favorite shows together.

As a wee TV fanatic, Times pop music critic Sean Daly first learned to tell time via Lee Majors classic "The Six Million Dollar Man." On family trips, instead of asking "Are we there yet?" he would inquire of his parents: "How many more Six's?" Thus, the concept of an hour. Adorable, right? Not nearly as cute: An adult Sean wears a Tigers hat not to support Detroit but because Tom Selleck wore one on "Magnum, P.I." It's sad really.

Michelle Stark is a Times writer, editor, designer and unabashed TV nerd. Her millennial TV-watching habits rely on Netflix, Hulu and Amazon instead of traditional cable, but she never misses her favorite shows, which include everything from Girls, Parenthood and New Girl to high-minded dramas like Mad Men and Homeland. She never met a reality dance show competition she didn’t like.

Sharon Kennedy Wynne is a Times writer and editor part of that first generation of toddlers raised on Sesame Street. Her TV tastes are eclectic. She's still a big fan of Sesame Street, but also darker fare like American Horror Story and Scandal. As our resident reality TV fan (though she's ashamed to admit it), she has complex theories on Survivor, Amazing Race and Big Brother strategies.